The Practice Date
by KR Blake
Summary: In which Ally helps Austin prepare for the perfect date with Kira. Set during Girlfriends & Girl Friends. Auslly. One-shot. (NOTE: Includes two important A/Ns at the end.)


He needed everything to be perfect. For Kira. She deserved nothing less than the perfect date. After he had had to practically beg on his knees for her to say yes, he had to deliver. After all, he had promised this one date would be perfect.

For her.

So what better way to get a perfect date for her than to inquire the help of another "_her_"?

-/-/-

"I don't know, Austin. Wouldn't it be kinda weird?" Ally questioned distractedly, handing a customer his change across the counter of Sonic Boom. "I mean, you and me on a… date?" she almost had to choke that word out.

"_Date_". With Austin. Her best friend. Just the very thought of going on a date with—even if it was a fake date, just for practice for the real deal—set her "_flight_" instincts on overdrive.

"It's not a real date." Austin persisted stubbornly, leaning forward over the counter to her. "It's just a practice date! _Pleeeeaasseee?_" he gave her his best puppy dog face, scrunching his eyebrows together and making his irresistible brown eyes large and animated. It was that exact look Ally had never been able to resist of his.

And he knew it.

She sighed, slumping her shoulders. "Fine." She conceded. "_One_ date and that's _it_, got it? Then you're on your own for this, okay?"

He practically leaped across the counter and engulfed her in a tight hug. She stumbled back a bit from the sheer force of the hug, blushing slightly.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" he repeated excitedly in her ear, squeezing her tighter with every syllable.

"Okay, if you get any more excited about this practice date, you won't have any date left to practice with." She grumbled, inexplicably annoyed. He chuckled and let go of her, returning to his respective side of the counter to plan how this date would go.

And as she turned away from him to deal with another customer inquiring about the violins in the corner, she couldn't help but feel something peculiar. Like she had missed out on something just then.

Whatever.

She had probably just missed another chance at writing some song lyrics.

There was always tomorrow for that, right?

-/-/-

"So what did you have planned for this?" Ally asked awkwardly, looking around the practice room, uncomfortable.

"I was thinking," Austin started with a mischievous smile, guiding her to the two chairs set up side by side in the centre of the room, "are you ready for this?" he didn't wait for her sarcastic answer. "I'd take her to the movies."

He waited for her ecstatic reaction.

The one that never came.

She simply raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him and crossed her arms over her chest. "That's it? That's the perfect date you have planned for Kira?"

"What do you mean, '_that's it_'?" Austin asked, offended. "It's perfect! You can't go wrong with seeing a movie."

"Exactly," Ally pointed out. "You already know it's foolproof, which means that it's a common date. No one wants to go on a common date. That just makes the girl think you didn't know what she'd like to do."

"And that's bad?" Austin pursued, genuinely confused by this. All the other girls he'd taken to the movies had seemed to enjoy themselves perfectly. But then again, they had never really spent much time watching the movie…

Which was what usually made the movies the perfect date.

"That depends, do you want a second date?" she countered easily, sarcastically. It probably should have struck him as weird that she would be so sarcastic all of a sudden. It wasn't like her at all. But he didn't notice anything off about her.

He was too focused on Kira.

"Yes?" he said, though it sounded more like a question than an answer.

"Then it's _very_ bad." She finished. "Here, pass me that blanket." She pointed to a red, white, and blue checked blanket slung over the back of the couch. Obediently, Austin retrieved the blanket from the couch and handed it to her.

Ally knelt down and spread the blanket out on the hardwood flooring of the practice room, perching herself neatly on the one side of the blanket when she was done. She looked up at Austin standing over her expectantly and patted the seat next to her.

"A picnic?" Austin asked, still sitting down beside his best friend. "Is that kinda cliché, too?"

"Not if you take her to the most breathtaking place in Miami." Ally stated matter-of-factly.

"The arcade on North River Drive?" Austin supplied hopefully, and Ally couldn't help but roll her eyes. It was his favourite arcade in the city, she knew. To him, the sight of a completely empty arcade and a sac full of tokens would have indeed been breathtaking.

But probably not to Kira.

"No, silly," she let out a giggle against her better judgement. "The beach. You know, that place you showed me? That little portion of the beach that looks over the ocean."

"Oh." He sounded somewhat disappointed at that. "Yeah, that could work."

"What do you mean '_it could work_'?" She challenged with a smile. "It's perfect, Austin! You'll go at sunset, look out over the ocean, sitting side by side." She scooted a few inches closer to Austin, growing excited as the images unfolded in her mind. Sitting, curled up close to Austin, watching the sun set over the Atlantic…

"Her eyes would sparkle and she'd nuzzle into your shoulder all cutsey-like and whatnot." Again, she demonstrated, burying her nose into the space between his neck and shoulder happily. He laughed easily, wrapping an arm around her shoulder loosely, easily.

It made her wonder if it would have been so easy for him to do that with Kira—would he have been able to hug Kira as tightly as he held Ally? Or would he have squeezed tighter, or for longer?

"And I'd lean into her like this," Austin said, picking up on her pattern of romance, leaning against her.

"And you'd look at each other, and it'd be—" Ally had continued to talk, but as they turned to face each other, smiling, imagining the picturesque date in their minds, Ally's voice had suddenly cut out.

Most everything about her had seemed to cut out in that second. Breathing, speaking, thinking…

She was simply captivated by the swirling colours of his soft brown eyes, the plumpness of the bulge in his lower lip, the smile that graced his face as he looked down on her. He seemed to be oozing a sort of charisma that she should have been used to by now. Except as she looked at up at him, she realized how different this kind of charisma was from his other kinds of charisma. It wasn't a confident kind of charisma. It wasn't standoffish or cocky. It wasn't the kind of charisma that made damn sure you knew he could do anything.

It was a soft kind of charisma. A caring charisma. The kind that let you know he would always protect you.

And it was in that second that Ally saw that picture even more clearly than before—that date suddenly became crystal clear in her mind.

She'd sit curled up to Austin, laughing as he told a funny story from something that happened earlier that day. He'd conclude his story and she'd be all but dying of laughter. She'd go a bit red, and he would comment on her laugh, telling her how pretty it was and such. She'd blush even more, smiling sweetly, and purse her lips slightly, her eyes begging for a kiss as the final rays of sun showered them in the last scraps of heat before nightfall.

And he'd comply, softly, nervously at first, almost uncertain, but gaining confidence in himself as a smile spread across her lips.

He'd lift up a few seconds later, smiling down at her, whispering how much he liked her, and how he was so happy to have her as a girlfriend.

It would be the perfect moment. Completely and indisputably—

"_—Perfect._" She breathed aloud, blushing.

It would be perfect.

Had it not been just a practice date for another girl.

* * *

**So the promo for _Girlfriends & Girl Friends_ just came out today and OH. MY. AUSLLY. Watch it now, all of you. You have to. It's amazing. Like, it took my friends and I about 4-5 hours to calm down completely from it. It was insane. **

**First important A/N: So, apparently I've been writing too much, because I seem to have messed up my wrist. It could possibly be carpel tunnel. I don't know. But now I have to wear a tensor bandage on my arm when I write so I don't, y'know, start crying from crippling pain. I'm fine, don't worry. But it'll probably take me a little longer to write since I'll have to take breaks and whatnot. **

**Second important A/N: My semester 1 exams are in about a week and a half, so after this one-shot, I'll be going off the radar again until the end of January. Sorry, but school takes precedence over this right now. You'll still be able to PM me if it's important, but I won't be updating anything until my exams are over. Sorry :( **

**-KR Blake Ω **


End file.
